"Vegetarianism" is an eating disorder. I feel this strongly, now, because this is how I justified it to myself and others when I was 15 and decided to stop eating real, nutritious food. I would just eat crackers, raisins, or rice cakes in lieu of food and I called myself "vegetarian." It was simply an easy way for me to severely limit the amount of FAT I'd consume to almost nothing. Thus, I was able to avoid eating almost all the things people around me ate. This is the way I controlled myself and the people around me. Also the way I isolated myself, and eventually hurt myself deeply. In college, I had a boyfriend who was a full-on Vegan, and thus my choices were further limited. For him, it was also a control issue. This kind of diet was pretty ruinous to both my physical and mental health. After I left him, it took me years and years to recover and learn to cook and eat healthy, balanced meals. I learned that the WORST possible diet for my body was a diet based in carbohydrates and no fat. In fact, once I started to include oils, meats, and milk in my diet, I basically lost the 10 llbs that dogged me all those years (and I tortured myself to lose) and they never came back. Today I am happy to say that I am a born-again Omnivore. I eat everything, enjoy food, and am a healthy fit natural Size 4. I am 7 months pregnant with a baby girl, and I am determined to do everything I can to ensure that she never does this to herself. In my family, no proper meals were served, not even dinner, and no one cared what or how I ate as long as I wasn't "fat." I see now how damaging this is, and I am super-sensitive to signs of it all around me. I was appalled to observe it recently when we visited my husband's family. I saw what I call "non-eating competitions" between his stepmother and 15-year old half-sister. I was deeply disturbed by the fact that they both ate NOTHING but a small piece of toast ALL DAY, until a small, late dinner. His stepmother is a gym teacher who weighs all of 102 llbs, and his half-sister -- guess what? -- has just announced that she is "A VEGETARIAN." She DOES NOT EAT. They ENABLE/ENCOURAGE this behavior on her part by letting her eat a plate of plain rice or plain pasta at dinner. NO PROTEIN! She is pasty, her skin is bad, she has no energy, can't sleep at night, has ADHD and is Depressed. Okay, I went on a bit here, but to bring it back on topic, I see almost every non-medically-necessary dietary limitation -- like Vegetarianism, Raw-Food-ism, Macrobiotic, Atkins -- as a way for people to avoid/rigidly control food intake, and that is -- uhh, not good.

Vegetarianism is much easier to explain & understand when it is described as "a socially acceptable eating disorder." This article clearly supports this.

I tried vegetarianism for 3-4 years. For the (supposed) health benefits, not for animal rights. Most of the dishes were good, some were outstanding, but I got tired of the often laborious food preparation at home, and only being able to eat one, maybe two, menu items at restaurants. Often the meals were pretty boring. Plus, I found I was hungry a lot, so I ate more often, and I therefore didn't lose the extra weight I needed to shed. Alas, I came across arguments (based on academic studies) that showed vegetarians are not healthier and do not live longer than meat-eaters. I then re-converted to eating meat several years ago.

I recall having acquired a sense of moral superiority with regard to meat eaters. I also do not recall being badgered by others regarding my vegetarianism, although I do recall being somewhat obnoxious/imperious toward meat eaters.

Nowadays, after having a good meat-based meal, I often realize how SATISFIED I feel. I don't remember ever having such a thought while eating vegetarian. My satisfaction was more in how good I had been, not in the food itself. I've come to believe people need animal foods -- that the satisfaction one feels after eating a medium-rare steak, roast turkey, fried chicken, grilled fish, boiled shrimp, etc., is a primal indicator of the goodness of such food.

[Some of you may have seen these points in a letter I wrote about a WayLay cartoon some time ago. They're very applicable here, so forgive me for the repetition.]

Addressing the omnivore/tooth structure debate:

We are most certainly omnivores by behavior. Dogs are as well. Dogs, however, are true carnivores (taxonomically speaking) because they have carnassials. These are the large, triple-rooted, pointy-yet-broad teeth in the back, designed for breaking and crunching bones, and humans have nothing like them in our mouths.

Having taken vertebrate zoo. I can tell you we're a lot closer to herbivores than to meat eaters. Look at a tiger or wolf's mouth; those are teeth designed to (a) pierce and (b) tear flesh. Now look at a horse's mouth, or a rabbit's. There you see flat incisors and molars, just like us. Flat incisors are perfect for grasping and tearing foliage, or carving off chunks of vegetable matter from fruit, vegetables, or nuts.

If you study the teeth of typical omnivores such as bears, they tend to have more fang-like teeth in their mouths than we do, and more separation between individual teeth. The cuspids (canines) are the closest thing we have to meat-piercing and -tearing teeth, and they're not very pronounced; a recent article in New Scientist described this as evolving away from needing them for mating competition. Cuspids are not particularly associated with carnivores, but they are with omnivores.

A link to a herbivore's teeth:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/GreekScience/Students/Andrea/teeth2.html

A link to a carnivore's teeth:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/GreekScience/Students/Andrea/teeth1.html

A link to an omnivore's teeth:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/GreekScience/Students/Andrea/teeth3.html

Carnassial teeth:

http://rawfed.com/myths/carnassials.jpg

Still, cats and dogs eat grass and humans eat meat, so functionally we're adaptable and our bodies have learned to extract nutrition from a variety of sources. I just wanted everyone to be speaking from an informed perspective.